


Survival

by QuietlyImplode



Series: Rescue Me [20]
Category: Black Widow (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Child Abuse, Clint Barton Needs a Hug, Clint and Nat talk about their pasts, Natasha Romanov Feels, Natasha Romanov Needs a Hug, Red Room (Marvel), Survivor Guilt, discussion of past trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-24
Updated: 2020-11-24
Packaged: 2021-03-09 20:42:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27692296
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QuietlyImplode/pseuds/QuietlyImplode
Summary: Natasha and Clint don't have easy pasts - sometimes they internalise it and sometimes they talk it out._____“Sometimes talking through your thoughts helps, right?”“They’re not good thoughts.” She cautions.“That’s ok, that sometimes happens.” He says carefully.
Relationships: Clint Barton/Natasha Romanov
Series: Rescue Me [20]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1984783
Comments: 6
Kudos: 35





	Survival

**Author's Note:**

> CW- Discussions of child abuse.

She’s been cranky all day. He doesn’t want to bother her again with a suggestion to do something so he sits on the laptop and writes up mission specs, research into bows that can have delayed explosions once they hit and anything else that lets him sit with her but not interact. 

Every time he’s suggested something like getting something to eat or watch or do, he’s met with a ‘no’ or a look. He’s stopped now, the days pretty much gone. She’s been intermittent in reading and staring at nothing, he wonders if he should be concerned. It’s like she’s mulling over something, but whatever it is it must be a big something, because whatever got her into this funk is not going away anytime soon.

He throws a cookie at her and it hits her in the chest. Leaping up, she draws her gun on him. Hands up, he cocks his head. “That’s not the response I thought I’d get by throwing you my last cookie,” he says flippantly for someone how has a gun aimed at his head.

“What the actual fuck, Clint.” She puts the gun back under the pillow (god she has guns everywhere) and sits back on the couch. Where before she was laying down and relaxed, she’s now on edge. Whoops. He hadn’t meant to do that.

“You okay?” He checks in, knowing the answer is no.

“Yeah.. I -“ she lays back down, not finishing the sentence.

“You hungry?” He looks pointedly to the cookie now on the floor. “I can throw you something else?”

“No,” comes the response, then a beat and “thanks though.”

He gives up.

If she wants to be in a mood, that’s ok. He tries not to let it send him into one.

As a last ditch effort, he asks, “wanna spar?”

She looks up.

“Yeah. Yeah ok.”

He grins big. “Yeah?”

“Yeah, just let me get changed.”

He tells her he’ll meet her on the mats, and heads down to the gym, making sure they’re free and that no-one is around. They haven’t spared in ages and he’s seen her take on Steve. 

They’ve come to an understanding since they spoke the other day to come together in the gym. He knows Steve is going easy on her, hell she knows too.

She arrives in a zip up hoodie and shorts, still not ok with neck things, he notices.

“How you wanna do this?” He challenges.

“Wanna do take downs?”

“Umm. No. How about tagging?” The ‘game’ of choosing a body part and protecting that by all means whilst trying to attack your partners and tagging it. Clint finds it a good warm up game, but also helps to gauge where she’s at.

“Sure. What part? Head?” She follows up immediately.

“God Nat, are you angry with me? No. You’ve lost enough brain cells.” A wry grin.

“Ok, stomach?”

“Nah, how about butts?”

She rolls her eyes. “Fine. But I chose next. Best to five?”

“Ok, but no heads,” he cautions.

They move around each other, Clint throws some easy shots, which are parried by Natasha, each choosing opportune times to attack. They’re up to 2 shots a piece when Clint calls for a break. They’ve been going for 20 minutes and he’s tired. Deconditioned might be the better word. Grabbing water from the nearby fridge he throws one to her, and takes another for himself.

“What’s up?” He says sitting on the mats next to her. “You’ve been in a mood all day, and you’re clearly not thinking here - I left several openings and you didn’t take one.”

She’s looks at her hands.

“Nothing. It’s fine. It’s just thoughts.”

“Sometimes talking through your thoughts helps, right?”

“They’re not good thoughts.” She cautions.

“That’s ok, that sometimes happens.” He says carefully.

“Do you ever think that we shouldn’t be here? That I shouldn’t be here?” She starts. He ponders whether to cut her off or let her go now she’s started, if he interrupts he worries that she’ll shut down. He lets her go on, prepared to cut her off.

“The odds of me surviving the Red Room, the sadists, the torture, the lessons; I can’t tell you how slim that was. It was only by chance that I survived that and others didn’t. Once, they had us locked in the basements with no food, only water and then gave us food after 5 days. I think the expectation was that we’d fight over it, kill over it. But you know, we were smart; we knew what they wanted and even though we knew we’d be punished; we shared it. I think we all thought it would be our last meal, we didn’t say it but I know we all felt it.. I don’t even remember their names. But I know their faces. The repercussion of that incident was, for lack of a better word, brutal.” 

She pauses takes a drink of water, Clint nods at her to continue, these are things Natasha never talks about. Things he’s only heard snippets of, from dreams or nightmares, from flashbacks to dissociation. Therapy must have opened some wounds right up, because volunteering this information is something he’d never thought happen. 

“we were separated after that. Only brought together for lessons. To fight each other. To best each other. Kill. Maim. Torture. To weed ourselves down to 28.” She takes a deep breath. “And now. Gods and monsters, we hold our own Clint, but I don’t have your skills, Tony’s armor, Bruce’s abilities. I have a boss who trusts my judgement on others but doesn’t trust me. Not enough to tell me that he’s faked his death or to tell me that Hydra was coming because in my previous life I was a turncoat, a ‘predatel'’ and that I might be playing both sides as well..”

Traitor, Clint’s mind supplies, tripping up on the Russian.

“Sometimes I can’t help but wonder, why me? Why did I survive it, when so many others didn’t? I’m not special or smarter or anything.. I just. I don’t even know..” she stops. Looks up at him.

“You know?”

He does. He really does. But he really doesn’t know how to address it other than talk of his own feelings of self worth. A story for a story, he supplied in kind.

“Barney would leave me, for hours, when we were at the circus. I didn’t trust any of them. Some of the others would pick on me, come looking for me when they knew Barney was out. I didn’t know at the time he was helping them with some pretty illegal shit, but I did know to hide myself, and I did know how to become invisible. There were others, my age, maybe older, that didn’t have that skill so when they’d move on from me, they’d go look for them. Beat them. Make them do tricks for the sheer fun of making them do something over and over again; taunt them. I’d watch, from up high, and wonder if I should save them from it. But if it wasn’t them, it’d be me. Those kids, they didn’t last long; they’d leave, some died and others; well I don’t really know what happened but I know it wasn’t anything good.” he grabs his own water and feels his heart rate quicken. Suppressing a memory.

“My point is, that there’s been shit that’s happened to us that no kid should go through. That’s not on us, yeah?”

She nods, slowly.

“And I suppose as adults we build our own support systems. Look at you, and how much work you’re putting into getting rid of this trigger? God Nat, we’ve made it this far. Not only that, we’ve found each other. And others that have our backs. Look at Tony; he’s done everything to make sure we are safe, Pepper keeps baking us shit, and Steve holds back on whooping our asses daily, Bruce and Cho, even Fury and Maria and May too. What are the chances we’d find them, or find a team that’s as fucked as us?” He smiles.

“Right?”

She nods slowly.

“I suppose.”

“It’s never going to go away, that feeling of why us.” He reckons. “but maybe it’s like the lottery; you win some you lose some.”

Natasha stands. Looking, he supposes, somewhat brighter.

“Come on slowpoke. It’s 2-2, someone has to win. Like the lottery,” she teases.


End file.
